Summary

Sonia Nazario's housekeeper in the United States, Carmen, has four children in Guatemala and is telling Nazario about them for the first time. It's been 12 years since Carmen last saw them. Carmen left them because her husband had left her for another woman and Carmen couldn't afford to feed the children on the money she made in Guatemala. The best solution she could think of was to go to the United States to work and send money back to Guatemala to care for her children.

Carmen tells Nazario about how angry and hurt her children are about their mother's absence, but she doesn't want to bring them to Los Angeles, California, where she lives because she doesn't live in a safe neighborhood. She also can't afford to hire a smuggler to get them there. Carmen's own journey north in 1985 included her smuggler robbing and...